SOC 248 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Poverty Trap, Invisible Hand, Class Consciousness
6 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
Great gaps in wealth and income remain between countries, but within almost any country one finds large, and often growing, gaps between rich and poor residents. The gap between nations is still greater than the gap within any single country. The richest 5% of the world"s people receive more than 100 times the income of the poorest 5% The richest 1% receives more income than the poorest 50% of the world"s people. There is some evidence that income inequality between countries is declining; However, this is not true all around the world. Europe"s per capita is 3x higher than that in africa. The closing of the worldwide gap is due entirely to gains in asia: china and india. They account for of the planet"s population. Changes seen there show a big impact on overall figures. Pattern:more equal societies fare better on a host of social measures than more unequal societies.
